Adecco to acquire edtech company General Assembly for $413 million

(Reuters) — Swiss staffing company Adecco Group is buying U.S.-based technology education provider General Assembly for $412.5 million including debt, it said on Monday, adding heavy investments in the business would initially drag on earnings. General Assembly, whose founders include Hyatt hotels heir Adam Pritzker, is a private school business started in 2011 that provides training in fields such as data science and analysis. Its revenues in 2017 were about $100 million with a strong 2018 booking backlog, Adecco said in a statement. Adecco has gone into acquisition mode to kickstart growth and address its lagging performance compared with faster-growing rivals, such as Randstad. Adecco said it saw synergies between General Assembly and its own training business, in particular the Lee Hecht Harrison career transition business. “General Assembly is currently in a high-growth investment phase and is therefore expected to be modestly dilutive to Group earnings in 2018, the impact of which is included within the group’s current guidance on planned strategic investments,” Adecco said in a statement. “From 2019, General Assembly is expected to be modestly accretive to earnings,” it added. “In the medium-term General Assembly’s EBITA (core earnings) margins are anticipated to be significantly higher than the group average.” Over the last three years, Adecco said General Assembly’s revenue had grown at a compound annual rate of 30 percent. The total enterprise value (equity plus debt) of the deal is $412.5 million, Adecco said, adding General Assembly would continue to operate as a separate division under its Chief… [Read full story]